There being no suitable emporium of shoes nearby I decided, along with Jeremy's strong encouragement, to hitch hike to Bordeaux where the nearest Decathlon store was situated to procure the desired articles.
The day was an ordeal from start to finish as in order to discover where the shop was I was forced to walk a couple of kilometres into town to find a network signal. Finding that the nearest shop was fifty or so kilometres away was easy, getting there on the good graces of the French driving public wasn't. After walking out of town again and past the largest solar power collector I have ever seen in the flesh i continued for several miles toward Bussac-Foret breakfasting on luscious ripe blackberries as I went. After an hour and a half of the usual shouts, gestures and beeps from passing motorists who refused to pick me up A chap stopped and took me out of his way to a junction of the N 10 where he told me to follow a track down to a motorway service station. i did this and got to the garage a while later only to find it surrounded by a high wire fence so I had to find a way through. Eventually I followed the trails of others in a similar predicament and found a way in by leaping over the wire and through a prickle bush.
Another half hour wait and a smashing chap picked me up and took me to Bordeaux where he worked just next to the Decathlon store. Result!
I asked a nice athletic looking young lady about shoes and told her what I was doing whereupon she said "oh la la" and explained that most of the shoes were shite and not to buy them for a 1400 kilometre walk over variable terrain. "You need the best shoes possible" said she and showed me to a specialist section for serious explorer and mountaineer types where they had boots and shoes for every sort of work and every sort of hunky outdoors person. I bought nice red and black shoes by Millet with chunky grip soles and a toughness guarantee to die for.
Leaving the store i dropped my old faithful trainers unceremoniously into a bin and strode onwards.
Getting out of Bordeaux was absolutely awful! I needed to get to the N 10 to hitch back to Montendre but the road served many suburban neighbourhoods too so hitching was useless in town. I figured a few miles out would be better so I got a taxi to take me to the N 10. Only trouble was that the bastard took me to the A10 motorway where hitching isn't allowed so i left the taxi not much better off than before.
Eventually, after walking a fair distance a Turkish man picked me up and ran me to the service station along the motorway where it seemed logically feasible to hitch onwards. I stood in blazing sun for hours hitching when no one was willing to pick up a passenger. I watched hundreds of lorries and cars come and go with no luck.
Finally I willed a chap all alone in his Citroen people-mover to stop and lo, so he did!
I was so relieved i could have hugged him. Good job I didn't I suppose.
The man wasn't talkative and when he did say something it was in a high squeaky voice so, try as I might, the journey was not a chatty one. He very kindly went out of his way too and took me all the way to Montendre where I thanked him profusely.
By the time I returned to the camp poor Jeremy had begun to worry about me.
That evening I cooked a sort of Carbonara for tea but used spaghetti instead of tagliatelle. It was very good even if I do say so myself.
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